The 40th Anniversary of Sesame Street has NPT Media Update Children’s Programming Correspondent and Sesame Street enthusiast Erin McInnis thinking again. This time, it’s about the plethora of OTHER great PBS children’s shows over the years. She’s compiled her favorites. Let the reminiscing (and debating) begin!

By Erin McInnis

Sesame Street kicked off its 40th year yesterday, sponsored by the number 40 and the letter H (I choose to believe the “H” is for “Happy Birthday”). If you didn’t know that Sesame Street was experiencing a milestone this year, you must be living under a rock. Even if you didn’t know an exact date, thanks to a multiday parade of Sesame Street Google images, appearances on daytime shows such as Today, and articles dedicated to the show’s relevance and staying power, Sesame Street is once again part of the public conscious. Not that the show has ever really not been, it’s just pushed to the side, particularly for those of us who don’t have small children in our immediate everyday lives.

There is no denying the staying power, the charm, or the relevance of Sesame Street. But all this attention has me thinking about all the other great children’s programming PBS has had over the years. Many of them obviously will not have the staying power of Sesame Street — how can a couple of seasons compare to generations of influence — but they carry on Sesame’s tradition, educating thousands of children in literacy, science, math, history, and literature. In honor of Sesame Street’s 40th Anniversary, I have come up with a list of what I feel are the top 10 PBS children’s shows of all time, present company excluded and in no particular order, of course. I’ve dug up clips for each. Feel free to correct me or add your own!

If you’re on the blog home page, click “read more” below to access clips. If not, they’re right here:

1. The Magic School Bus (1994 – 98)

2. 3-2-1 Contact (1980 – 88)

(Bloodhound Gang – part of 3-2-1 Contact)

3. Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? (1991 – 96)

4. Wishbone (1995 – 98)

5. The Electric Company (1971 – 77)

6. Ghostwriter (1992 – 95)

(Check out this clip, with Samuel L. Jackson as the dad)

7. Reading Rainbow (1983 – 2009)

8. Square One TV (1987 – 92)

(ok this is Mathnet – a section of Square One. My FAVORITE. I just had to put it in here)

9. Mister Rogers (1968 – 2001)

10. Bill Nye the Science Guy (1993 – 2002)

Come early at 2:30 for a light reception and origami craft led by Emily Winckler of the Consulate-General of Japan in Nashville.

When you look at a piece of paper, what do you see? If your answer is a flat, two-dimensional square, then BETWEEN THE FOLDS will astound you. Blurring the mysterious lines between art, science, sculpture and math, the film is an exhilarating adventure into origami, or paper folding, featuring works of art whose emotional expressiveness and engineering complexity defy logic. The eccentric artists and scientists in BETWEEN THE FOLDS envision the three-dimensional possibilities of paper and change the mundane into the poetic and magical—all without scissors, tape or glue. Ultimately, the medium of paper folding itself—a blank, uncut square—emerges as a resounding metaphor for the creative potential in us all.

ITVS Community Cinema in Nashville, a free documentary screening series presented by Nashville Public Television, Nashville Public Library and Hands On Nashville, is proud to present an exclusive screening of BETWEEN THE FOLDS with special partners Zeitgeist Gallery and the Consulate-General of Japan in Nashville. The screening will take place Sunday, November 15, at 3 p.m. at the downtown branch of the Nashville Public Library and will be followed by a panel discussion with Lain York, local artist and gallery manager at Zeitgeist Gallery in Hillsboro Village, Dr. Victoria Greene, professor of physics and executive dean, Vanderbilt University College of Arts & Sciences, and Malachi Brown, local computer programmer/origami artist. Andy Miller, Belmont University Math Professor, will moderate.

Participants are invited to come early at 2:30 for a light reception and origami craft led by Emily Winckler of the Consulate-General of Japan in Nashville .

Directed, written and produced by Vanessa Gould, BETWEEN THE FOLDS will premiere on Nashville Public Television on the PBS series Independent Lens in December.

BETWEEN THE FOLDS chronicles ten people whose lives have been transformed by paper folding. From artists to physicists to educators, many have abandoned careers and hard-earned graduate degrees—all to forge unconventional lives as modern-day paper folders.

While they may have come to origami through different experiences and for a variety of reasons, common threads emerge; paper folding consumes them, they talk about it in musical terms and many of these provocative and highly intelligent people practice paper folding because, well, it’s fun!

The film opens with three of the world’s foremost origami artists—a former sculptor in France folding caricatures rivaling the figures of Daumier and Picasso; a hyperrealist who walked away from a successful physics career to challenge the physics of a folded square instead; and an artisanal papermaker who folds impressionistic creations from the very same medium he makes from scratch.

However, as the film progresses, the artists become less conventional, and the post-modern concepts of abstraction, minimalism, deconstruction, process and empiricism take root —mirroring modern art itself. Abstract artists emerge with a greater emphasis on process and concept, rattling the fundamental roots of realism that have long dominated traditional paper folding. Eventually science emerges as another front in the exploration of folded paper—featuring advanced mathematicians and a remarkable scientist from the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at MIT who won the MacArthur “Genius” Award for his computational origami research.

While debates arise on issues of technique, symbolism and purpose, the film ultimately culminates with the notion that art and science are two different interpretations of the very same world around us.

Next week marks the 40th Anniversary of Sesame Street. As NPT’s Erin McInnis points out, that’s two generations, at least! There’s no understating the educational and cultural impact of the show over the years, and to prove the latter point, I guarantee that you saw at least one Sesame Street costume this past Halloween, and not necessarily on children. A quick gander around Flickr illustrates that Elmo, Big Bird, Bert and Ernie and the gang are alive and kicking — in Times Square; on the streets of New York; at house parties and more.

Here are a few we liked on Flickr. Enjoy! Happy Birthday Sesame Street!

It was 35 years ago when a self-described “rag tag bunch of long-haired hippie public television types” caught Willie Nelson on video camera and produced the very first episode of Austin City Limits. To celebrate the show’s anniversary and his new record, Nelson returns with Ray Benson and Asleep at the Wheel for a very special “Willie and the Wheel” episode on Saturday, November 14 at 11:00 p.m. It’s just one of several special episodes this month, highlighted by a complete hour with Pearl Jam. It’s been 18 years since the band’s seminal debut, Ten, and in a sign that it may be a strong as ever, the band’s latest, Backspacer, just hit number one. Catch the show that Billboard describes as, “Vedder and the band…riffing with the crowd as if everyone was mingling at a party rather than at the taping of a legendary TV music series,” on Saturday, November 21 at 11:00 p.m.

Got a request for John Fogerty? Here’s your chance to make it. Saturday, November 7 at 8:00 p.m. NPT offers a very special broadcast of John Fogerty – Live By Request. Just like it sounds, Fogerty will be performing live and taking requests from you and other PBS viewers around the nation who call into the special toll-free number. If you want to experience Fogerty even more live, scroll down for a chance to win tickets to his performance at the Ryman on November 22.

American Masters profiles Woody Guthrie. Independent Lens shares the emotional roller coaster ride of Roque Wave drummer Pat Spurgeon as he awaits a kidney transplant, and for those who missed it when it was pre-empted earlier this year, Great Performances offers an encore broadcast of Harlem in Montmartre.

It’s another great month of music programming on NPT.

Read the Rest of the NPT Music Monthly November 2009 on the wnpt.net news page. It’s the complete listing of all the music programming coming to NPT this month, including all the above mentioned artists, plus The Beatles, Jackson Browne, Elvis Costello, Sugarland, Celtic Woman, OneRepublic and plenty more. Subscribe for free at wnpt.net. Tell your friends!

[UPDATED: We've updated language to clarify how long the verse should be. Basically, just write a new verse to the song]

Enter Our “Stuck In Nashville, Again” Lyric Contest and Win Tickets to See John Fogerty at the Ryman Auditorium

John Fogerty will not only be on NPT on Saturday, November 7 at 8:00 p.m., with John Fogerty: Live By Request, he’ll also be at the Ryman Auditorium on November 22, and NPT wants you to be there. We’ve got (2) pairs of tickets to the concert. To enter to win the tickets, we’d like you to imagine that the classic Fogerty-penned Credence Clearwater Revival song “Lodi” is really about Nashville, and then write a four-line new verse that fits the melody and ends with the line, “Oh Lord, stuck in Nashville again.”

To enter, budding lyricists must email their entry to tv8@wnpt.net with “Stuck in Nashville” in the subject line.

Entries will be accepted beginning on Monday, November 2 through 5:00 p.m. November 13. Winners will be notified on November 15 on how to get their tickets. Winning entries, and several honorable mentions, will posted here on the NPT Media Upate blog (http://www.npt08.wordpress.com) on Monday, November 15.

Be creative. Put some landmarks in there. Keep it clean. Good luck!

And don’t forget to tune in for John Fogerty: Live By Request on Saturday, November 7 at 8:00 p.m. on NPT. Just like it sounds, Fogerty will be performing live and taking requests from you and other PBS viewers around the nation who call in to the special toll-free number.

Beth Curley and Meigs Magnet Middle School Principal Jon Hubble Taking Care of Business

“She was pleased to learn that this academic magnet school offers five foreign languages, including Chinese,” says NPT producer Greta Requierme, who has a 5th grader at the school. “She looked right at home in the principal’s office, sitting behind the desk.”

JoAnn Scalf, director of education at NPT, also has a daughter at Meigs.

“I got to see a lot of technology in the classroom,” Beth tells us, “which is great, because NPT provides a lot of material for classrooms. I was excited to see technology being used in real classroom situations.

“I love kids, and it was a really fun day. Thumbs up to principal Hubble and everyone at Meigs for the fantastic work they do, and a big thank you for inviting me to be a part of it.”

*Contrary to some published reports, Beth DID NOT interrupt the morning announcements to thank the students for listening, remind them of the value of the morning announcements, and offer to thank them for their support with a gift of an NPT water bottle and the complete collection of NPT’s Memories of Nashville series. She DID tell them, however, that Meigs Magnet School is THEIR magnet school.

Beth Curley and Meigs Magnet Middle School Principal Jon Hubble Walking the Halls.

Earlier this week, at the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in D.C., legendary comedian, actor, author, television producer and activist Bill Cosby was awarded the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor. Honoring Cosby that night were Chris Rock, Jerry Seinfeld, Sinbad, Carl Reiner and Cosby Show alums Phylicia Rashad and Malcolm-Jamal Warner, among others. NPT and PBS stations nationwide will broadcast the ceremony on Wednesday, November 4, 2009 at 7:00 p.m. with an immediate encore at 8:30-11:00 p.m. ET, on PBS. The program, which recognizes the life and achievements of the beloved comedian also includes an assortment of classic film clips from Cosby’s career.

That the program is airing via PBS makes perfect sense. Cosby’s connections to PBS go way back, into the early 70s. He was a cast member of The Electric Company, where he was going up against himself long before Stephen Cobert would do so in his “Formidable Opponent” segments, and a frequent guest on Sesame Street, where his certainly-improvised “over and under” skit remains legendary in its perfect simplicity.

Over and Under on Sesame Street

The Cosby Twins on Electric Company – UN

Hey You Guys! from Electric Company, with Rita Moreno

The Cosby Twins on Sesame Street – Alphabet

If you caught the excellent Independent Lens season opener HERB AND DOROTHY, you discovered a couple whose life was consumed with the beauty and joy of experiencing and collecting contemporary art. Herb and Dorothy Vogel are a husband and wife of modest means who need art in their lives the way most of us need food and water. What was particularly lovely about the film was its focus on profiling the couple, and not necessarily the artists and art itself.

A completely satisfying work, it made me want to go out and collect some art. It had me thinking about what passions my wife and I share. It also reminded me that I really ought to hang up that piece of folk art I bought in the summer.

If the film left me wanting to know more about anything, it was the myriad of artists mentioned that I wasn’t familiar with. Who are they, and what’s their process?

Carrie Mae Weems’ Mourning , 2008. Archival pigment print, 61 x 51 inches.

Together with the Frist Center for the Visual Arts and its “Films at the Frist” series, we’re happy to bring you free screenings of this series over two consecutive Fridays, October 23 and 30, at 6:30 p.m. Two episodes will be shown each night, each constructed around a theme that functions as a thread that loosely connects the artists: “Compassion,” “Fantasy,” “Transformation” and “Systems.”

Season Five includes 14 of today’s most accomplished artists as they create works that reflect important and timely global issues. The artists span five continents and include such legendary figures as Jeff Koons, Cindy Sherman, John Baldessari, Carrie Mae Weems and William Kentridge.

There’s an excellent companion site, with a complete list of all the artists profiled, at pbs.org/art21

Now, 99.9 percent of the people who read this blog can’t afford to collect art by any of the artists mentioned above, but perhaps the Art: 21 films will inspire you, and like Herb and Dorothy Vogel, you’ll catch the next generation of great artists while they’re on their way up. When’s the next art crawl?

And speaking of Herb and Dorothy, and the Frist Center, if you missed the film when it aired on NPT, you’re in luck. The film is screening as a prelude of sorts to the Nashville Jewish Film Festival on Sunday, November 1, 3:00 p.m. at the Frist.

Word that Jason Mraz will spoof his mega-hit “I’m Yours” on Sesame Street this season, by re-writing it as “Outdoors,” has us at NPT thinking about all the other musicians who have stopped by the show, to either parody one of their own songs, sing one straight, or join the gang in a singalong celebration of letters and learning. We quickly started sharing our favorites. The beauty of You Tube, of course, is that we can then share them with you. Below are some of our favorites, or at least the ones we could find online (where’s REM doing “Furry Happy Monsters?”) Let us know in the comments if you agree, and then share your own. I don’t want to influence you, but we saved what might be the best, for last. If you watch only one of these, make it the All-Star jam of “Put Down The Duckie.” Kudos also to Elmo, for coining the word “snorey” in the Bocelli clip. The 40th season of Sesame Street begins on NPT and PBS Stations nationwide on November 10.

If you’re on the blog home page, click “read more” below to access clips. If not, they’re right here:

James Taylor

Feist

Andrea Bocelli

Sheryl Crow

Aaron Neville

Johnny Cash

Linda Ronstadt

Bela Fleck

Stevie Wonder

Cab Calloway

Pete Seeger, Celia Cruz, Paul Simon, Itzhak Perlman, Wynton Marsalis and more: “Put Down The Duckie”

Is there a connection between Andy Warhol’s painting of Campbell’s Soup cans and Public Enemy’s sampling of Clyde Stubblefield’s drum beats? Is sample-based hip-hop art or theft? The two questions have been at the base of a legal and cultural debate for almost two decades now, and while legally it appears the “theft” side has won, culturally, the “art” side will not be silenced (see GQ’s excellent profile of mash-up artist Girl Talk). It’s a loaded argument, and while COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS filmmakers Benjamin Franzen and Kembrew McLeod don’t necessary offer a defining statement on the debate, they do a fine job tracing the history of sampling from its raw and humble beginnings in the boroughs of New York City to its MTV fame, Rolling Stone magazine covers and top of the Billboard charts and back down again — or depending on how you look at it, up again, at least when it comes to digital critical mass — where it thrives in the nightclubs of the UK, college town concert venues (again, see GQ’s excellent profile of mash-up artist Girl Talk), You Tube, home laptops and cell phones.

NPT, together with ITVS, Hands on Nashville and the Nashville Public Library, wants to engage you in the discussion with a free screening of COPYRIGHT CRIMINALS, this SUNDAY, OCTOBER 18 at 3:00 p.m. at the Main Library downtown. Come early for a 2:30 reception with Franzen. Joining him after the film for a panel discussion will be Lynn Morrow, entertainment attorney with Nashville firm Adams and Reese, and Shane Martin, aka Pimpdaddysupreme, Nashville DJ and self-proclaimed copyright anarchist. Jonathan Martin, co-anchor of Channel 4 News Today/Saturday on WSMV-TV, will moderate.

The post-screening discussion should be particularly lively, especially after the final quarter of Franzen and McLeod’s film, when the bottom falls out of sampling’s free-market reign and the lawyers swoop in. It’s then that Public Enemy producer Hank Shockley goes from (paraphrasing) “we didn’t know we couldn’t use the samples” to “we used to bury the samples so you couldn’t tell where they were from.” It’s in this latter part of the film that correlations to contemporary art are presented, including very eloquently by Jeff Chang of SoleSides Records. It’s a valid argument that I wished was explored more and defended more by the artists. Ultimately, you walk away realizing that when it’s really all about money, it’s really not about art. Which is why I was slightly disappointed that the concept of the Creative Commons copyright isn’t explored more (or at all). But the film can’t possibly cover every aspect of the issue and still be a palatable length. It needs a symposium (any takers?). And where Community Cinema is concerned, leaves perfect room for debate and spirited discussion.

Incidentally, Campbell’s Soup wasn’t too keen on Warhol using its label for art, until it realized how much the artist’s work was revitalizing its brand. But what happens when another brand associates Warhol’s iconic work with an entirely different brand? About a year ago, Pop Burger in New York City found itself on the receiving end of a legal letter demanding the burger outlet refrain from using multiple images of Warhol’s famous work. Its premise? “…displaying the famous red, gold, black and white label makes it seem that the restaurant is ‘affiliated with or sponsored by Campbell in some way.’ ” Pop Burger’s response to the New York Post: “”Who knew that Campbell’s Soup still existed? The only reason they are probably still in business is because Andy gave them a place in pop culture history that will forever be celebrated as some of the best art work ever created.”

Fascinating.